The undead wolfgirl finished feasting and discarded the drained carcass of a formerly handsome man. She didn’t fail to chew on the amulet he kept clutching until his final moments as well, the hot surface of the artifact burning the skin off her face and lips.…which soon grew back as if nothing ever harmed it in the first place.

As she continued absorbing life energy, her movements first got faster and faster, and then started slowing down. Intelligence was steadily returning to her eyes, and by the time she was done, her previous ferocity was all but gone, and she was looking left and right with questioning eyes and a dumbfounded visage.

Her physical appearance wasn’t very different from how she looked before. Her skin was a tone paler, and there was an uneven yellowish tint in the whites of her eyes. Other than that, she could pass for a living being to an uncanny degree, which in this case worked in Xiani’s favor.
Perhaps the clean method in which she died was to be thanked for that.

Having affirmed that this monster is no longer hostile, Xiani clapped and addressed her.

“Welcome back! Are you capable of hearing me?”

The yaren looked at her with a questioning gaze and then pointed at herself, as if not sure if she was the one being addressed.

Who else? We’re in the middle of an empty former battlefield! The humans retreated west, and the yaren retreated east. There is no one else she could possibly be addressing.

Xiani sighed….this called for a supplementary question.

“Do you know the details of your identity?”

The girl didn’t react for a while and then nodded reluctantly. She opened her mouth, seemingly trying to say something…but no articulate sound followed.
She seemed surprised by it, and tried several more times, to no result.

Xiani wasn’t the one to swear easily. In fact, she took pride in not using any swear words, even if the situation called for it.
And right now, swearing nonstop would be very, very appropriate. How was she going to get information out of this person if the other side can’t speak? Hopefully, she still remembered how to write!

“Stand up. This place isn’t safe anymore. My people have a secret base nearby, I’ll check you out there….”

The girl looked apprehensive at first, but looking at the amulet in her palms and the destruction all around, she soon shrugged and stood up….
…only to lose her balance and fall down soon afterwards.

Xiani decided to do a little experiment. She approached the girl and summoned a small flame.

“This is going to cause a bit of pain. Don’t assault me, I mean you no distress.”

The girl nodded again. Seeing that her message was understood, Xiani took the girl’s hand, and put it straight in the flame.
Blisters appeared as the fires licked and scorched the flesh. However, her face betrayed no sign of pain nor agitation. She was observing her hand burning away with the curiosity of a child look at fireworks.
And just as before, as soon as the flame was taken away, the wounds started healing on their own.

Next, she told her to close both eyes and only open them again if she felt being poked on the cheek.
However, no matter how many times Xiani poked her face, no matter how hard and no matter from what angle, there wasn’t a single response, and both eyelids remained firmly closed.

…So that’s how it was. She had neither a sense of pain, nor touch.
Xiani always wondered whether undead were seemingly immune to pain because they were such mindless beasts that they didn’t care, or because they literally didn’t feel it. These little experiments provided ample evidence for the latter option.

Xiani sighed again, realizing what a colossal task awaited her.
Well, whatever. If this failed, she could just forcefully sever the connection the wolf had with the amulet, leave her to literally rot, and then deliver the artifact back to the Remnant as if nothing happened.

“Do not fret, I’ll provide you assistance…”

She put her arm around the reanimated, sentient corpse and somehow managed to get her up.
While doing so, she also stealthy pocketed the amulet, which was now ice-cold, to no resistance from its current owner.

Next, they made their way to Xiani’s Garlizard, which was calmly waiting for her some distance away, having survived where many of its brethren fell.

Xiani was really grateful for the effort the Black Sun Empire put into drilling their troops and training their beasts of war - if it was just an average lizard that some of the lesser tribes utilized, it would have run away long ago in the face of carnage that unfolded before its eyes not long ago.

She mounted it, and sat the girl in front of her, using the reins and her arms to ensure that the other person won’t unexpectedly fall off to the side. Now that she was essentially back hugging her, Xiani could clearly feel that the wolfgirl was neither breathing nor had a heartbeat.
Not being able to inhale and exhale oxygen was probably why she couldn’t produce sound with her vocal cords…no matter, they’d just have to develop some other method of communication in its place. It’s still better than if she had something wrong with her brain….

Suddenly, the girl blushed and turned away. What now? Never mind what, there was one more matter that needed to be addressed….

“By the way, I need a way to denominate you. Do you remember your name? Unfortunately, I didn’t quite catch it the first time we met…”

However, she only gave Xiani a clueless look and shrugged.
The possibility that this person actually and totally lost her memories was becoming more and more real with every passing second, and Xiani was feeling more and more hopeless with every passing second.

She actually had no idea what happened when an undead being regained its consciousness. Was it similar to reincarnation, where a person usually didn’t retain the knowledge of their past lives? Or was it merely a temporary fog that would dissipate in time? She decided to bet on the second option, and carry on…for now.

Suddenly, the girl pointed to the black smoke rising up from human corpses scattered around and forming clouds of miasma, slowly enveloping the former outpost.
Now then. It was near midnight already. A regular person’s eye wouldn’t be able to perceive it even during the day, much less in the darkness of night- nevermind the temporary help from the blazing fires illuminating the remains of the encampment.

“The black wind…Can you see it?” asked Xiani, cautiously.

The girl nodded and gave Xiani a questioning look. Did she forget what resentful energy is?

“In that case, from now on, until you remember your past self…your name shall be Heifeng.”

She seemed to be pleased with that title and nodded eagerly. That looked kind of cute, and Xiani felt something akin to affection spark within her heart.

“And my name is…Mei Xiani. Even though I have bunny ears, I’m actually a human. Don’t you ever forget that!”

The girl nodded once again, a studious expression lighting up her pale face. She opened her mouth to say something, but just as before, no sound escaped her lips.

And so, the two of them left the ruined camp, and set out for the underground tunnel nearby….

“Don’t bite me, all right?”

“…?”

*Heifeng: Black wind